


That Wayward Smile

by larkingstock



Series: prompt nonsense [10]
Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Raylan never leaves Harlan, dark!Raylan, just three Harlan Kids being about as fucked up assholes as you might expect them to be, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 09:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18029387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkingstock/pseuds/larkingstock
Summary: There ain't much Raylan likes. So he makes sure to enjoy the things he does.





	That Wayward Smile

**Author's Note:**

> prompts: **voyeurism** and **creepy bullies**
> 
> :):):) (Well, _I_ find this to be creepy, anyway. *shrug*) Just a little go at the ways these three might have gone differently if Raylan never left Harlan.
> 
> Fic title from [Oh Honey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuYz2MBZZtE) by The Audreys, and that is not a joke, because sometimes things just align like that.
> 
>  
> 
> The prompt nonsense series: the ongoing travails of one anon's quest to reacquire their errant writing mojo, with no guarantee of consistency, continuity, compliancy, or character appreciation.

This is the part Raylan likes. There ain't many things Raylan likes, but this is one of them, so he nudges his legs wider. Lets his dick chub up a little.

That always makes it better. Which would be why he deploys it sparingly.

Boyd sees it first, eyes catching over the bulge behind Raylan's fly with that bright dart of hope he can't never hide, not from Raylan, and it almost makes Raylan want to laugh. He doesn't, though, because Ava's already turning, following the shift in Boyd's attention, and Ava doesn't like it when she knows Raylan's laughing at her. She gets all pouty. And while variety can have its charms, watching Boyd soothe her ruffled fur down, down, and mmm, down, Raylan prefers it when she still believes there's a chance he'll...

Fuck, he doesn't know. Drag her out of Boyd's arms and fuck her. Right in front of him. Stake his claim, declare she's his, forever, until death do they part. Get in a manly violent jealous fight over her.

Or join in.

They're both kissing with half an eye still on him, and his nascent erection. Boyd's already got her panties off, wet fingers in her snatch she's bending her ass up like hell to make peek out from the hem of her itty bitty skirt, moaning like she's auditioning for work at Audry's. Moaning like Raylan hasn't been there plenty of times before--like he wasn't first in. Half out of his head on 'shine and terror and despair, coal dust from the cave-in still coating his throat no matter how many drinks he took to burn it out, and sweet-sixteen Ava Randolph with her big sweet-sixteen blue eyes of worry and offering her sweet-sixteen virgin snatch up in comfort. He'd fucked her right here on the Crowder cabin floor, with Boyd already legless and watching from the very sofa he's on now, and Raylan still has no idea who'd even remember shit about the event better.

Ava, he supposes.

He considers informing her Audry's'll take her in a heartbeat, no audition needed. But that would just spoil the mood, wouldn't it. So instead he lets his mouth curl, a little at the edge, skims his palm down his crotch. Boyd once, in an inebriated state, called it Raylan's cat smile.

The inebriated state was incidental. Boyd relays any shit that runs across his mental landscape at any and all times, and only by dint of managing to be marginally more amusing than he is fucking annoying does Raylan put up with it, most of the time. But, Raylan does suspect the inebriation _did_ contribute to the way Boyd had suddenly shut up, with a bright red flush to the tips of his ears.

It's shit like that that makes Raylan pour enough 'shine into dead houseplant pots to kill them three times over again, Jesus. That, and how he doesn't actually fucking like it much, not like Arlo, so weakass a man he takes it like mother's milk. Not to mention how Raylan fell into Ava's arms under the influence, not coming to his senses for months, not before she was talking bridal gowns and he realized he was lucky he hadn't knocked her up to be staring down whatever shotgun barrel her kin could rustle up to escort him down the aisle.

But it's been two goddamn years since then, and Ava still wears her heart and her hopes on her sleeve and her cleavage and her tiny skirts. Which would be why, when Raylan curls his _cat smile_ over at them, Boyd's shoulders slump a fraction of an inch while Ava's cute little whimper only climbs.

"Come on, baby," Boyd murmurs. Ava doesn't even notice that sad little note in his tone, even as he turns all his attention on her and she lets him lay her back on the sofa and hoist her thigh over his shoulder, kissing her bellybutton on the way down.

Aww. He's being nice. Raylan doesn't know where the fuck Boyd got his sweet streak from, considering his antecedents, but the fun is over--he could wait half the night for Ava to let go of the stubborn belief that this time, _this_ time, will be the one. He timed it, once, when he was interested. Bored. Whatever, same difference. Case in point: she's cupping her tits up for a show as she arches for Boyd's mouth--her blouse and bra have been gone for a while--pretending her eyes are closed. So Raylan adds a little bit more of a smirk, just for her, on his way out the door, already slipping a cigarette between his lips.

He lights up with his usual prayer that the cancer'll get him before the mine does. He knows that's somewhat fucked up--his mother did not go easy--but at least the smokes'll give him a few years of earthly pleasure before killing him, where the mines can only give earthly misery. He never woulda gone back down into those living tombs, except for Boyd calling him a pussy. With a shake in his voice Raylan doesn't believe anyone else would hear or ever suspect. So, the motormouth moron might have saved his life, for whatever value of temporary postponement could be called "saved," but as far as Raylan is concerned, Boyd owes him, and every cigarette is a middle finger to the mines, since there's no point giving one to death. That bony fucker and his scythe won't be denied, one way or another.

He guesses that's why he likes it. That part, with Boyd and Ava. Somehow, they don't know that--somehow, they still have this strange spark of hope in them. Or stubbornness, or clinging desperation, or whatever it is, but it's something in them that defies the truth, each time, every time they press themselves together, still looking for Raylan, and that's the closest thing to hope he can conceive of. He doesn't know how it is they don't know it, can't breathe it and see it and feel it to their bones, that nothing is going to save them. Any of them. So they kiss and fuck and look sidelong yearning hope at Raylan, and unlike liquor, it's a delusion, a softness--a cruelty, that Raylan can actually find it in himself to enjoy.

One day, Raylan knows, he's going to join them. When the time is right. He supposes that's what's got them still holding on, they know it too. They can feel it, right there between the three of them, that possibility he's never fully closed out, because when he _does_...

The smile spreads, right across his cheeks, and he looks up, the nighttime sky sporting its wide slasher smile of a home galaxy, remote and uncaring and a truly kindred feeling. It's not that Raylan _doesn't_ care...probably, if there's anyone on this earth he could be described as "caring" about, besides Helen, it'd be Boyd and Ava. But he's just not built like that. Like them. Built to _love_.

To receive their love, their desperate, stubborn, fools-hope love, on the other hand...

A squeal of tires, and Raylan perks up, his ears picking out Bowman's truck. This evening's entertainment just got a whole lot more promising as the kid _blusters_ out, striding too fast right up to the porch, wide and tall and quick, and stupid fight to match in his eyes.

Raylan glides to his feet, not even bothering to remove the cigarette, veins humming. Bowman's got four inches on him, and must be getting up to a hundred pounds by now. Raylan tries not to grin, afraid the sparkle lighting up his eyes might put him off.

If anything could. Bowman draws himself up with all the arrogance of nineteen years when it hasn't sunk in yet that a football star in high school doesn't mean shit and the colleges have all passed him over. He started shifts in the mines a few months back, and running errands for Bo, and it still hasn't sunk in, poor bastard.

Okay, Raylan's grinning.

Bowman scowls, and jerks his head. "Daddy want Boyd home."

"'Wants,' dumbfuck. And Boyd's porking your little girlfriend, so Daddy gon' have to wait."

Bowman is far from the only male in Harlan County panting after Ava, but last week he did join the exalted ranks of the few Ava has gone all out on, like some brutal Valkyrie goddess of flirting getting him all spun up, right in front of Raylan. Sometimes he thinks she'd even take a _reaction_ , any kind at all, at this point.

And, god, Raylan doesn't even have to work for it. He might have to thank Ava for that.

Bowman hollers, it coulda been words but honestly what's the point even wasting the mental energy to figure it out, and lunges.

He's got reach and speed and weight, football muscles and thwarted-horny humiliated rage, and Raylan's got a lifetime of Arlo, so it's not like it was ever gonna be fair. He lets Bowman get in a shot or two, get his bell rung hard enough to really get the blood going--and flowing--before busting the overgrown kid's nose with a headbutt. Let him really follow in Bo's brokebeaked footsteps.

Raylan follows it up with a slam to the solar plexus, watching the blood spluttering down across the whole bottom half of Bowman's face as he coughs out. He gets in a few punches to the face as the guy goes down, and a kick to the balls because fuck, why not, but by that point he doesn't think Bowman's really conscious anymore.

The door to the shack bangs open, and Boyd's the first one out, though Ava's not far behind, fumbling to do up her blouse without any bra underneath. And it's dawning, suddenly, on Raylan that Boyd--

\--takes one look at his brother on the dirt, and Raylan's bleeding face, and comes straight at him.

Raylan almost takes half a step back, spine hunching up--getting in a fight with Boyd is the last thing he wants, right now, to ruin the good clean high, the sweet buzz of dropping the guy's asshole brother and the pain lancing through it all just right from his cheek, his mouth--

\--and Boyd's hand cups his jaw, his other thumb on Raylan's split lip, salty sweat sting in the pressure that asks to be tongued, his eyes flickering over the wounds full of fucking _concern_.

_Jesus_ , Boyd.

Raylan does laugh, now, so hard he could choke on it, so much defective fucking _fondness_ for this fucking idiot in this moment that he grabs him back, hauls him in and lays a bloody kiss right across his mouth.

Through the punch-perfect ringing in Raylan's ears, he hears Ava's astonished squeak, and then Boyd's jaw is falling open--equally astonished--just an instant before Raylan shoves in, licking his blood into Boyd's mouth, into his talented, tireless tongue now slack and obeisant before Raylan's. And then, before Boyd can respond, Raylan lets his last laugh roll into his mouth like a slap on the ass and pulls away, stretching his arms out nice and wide, shaking out that tightness through his shoulders, his limbs.

He pops his neck, sideways, and looks down searchingly around himself, that cigarette had had like half left, but it's crushed, by his boot or Bowman's. So he pulls out another one, because that's the kind of tussle that deserves an afterglow, quickie or not, and as he lights it, he sneaks a glance over at the winsome twosome. Ava's looking, more wide-eyed and uncertain than he's ever seen her, between the brother at her side, the brother at her feet, and the ex-boyfriend who'd kissed one and beat the shit out of the other. Boyd's trying to pull himself together, swallowing and still silent, fuck, Raylan bets he can still taste him in his mouth, coating out Ava's pussy, and, _fuck_ , this is going to be so, so much better than he even thought.

When the time is right. He tilts his head, considering, and nudges Bowman's prone form with the tip of his boot. It's not a new thought--growing up the way they have, hell, he can't remember when this shit wasn't just there, in his head, like the air and the hills and the bitterness--but it's the first time that...

His fingers on his cigarette linger, a moment, on the singing ragged thrum of his lip. On his hurt, that Boyd had only had eyes for, even over his own brother--that Ava, now, is approaching hesitantly with a wet handkerchief, for the first time in years looking at him like a person, rather than a shining hero who's supposed to make all her dreams come true.

Behind her, Boyd's heaving his brother over, smacking him awake, Boyd's voice rising, cold and vicious in berating tones Raylan doesn't even bother listening to as she dabs, gently, and he lets her, because...it actually feels nice, to let her. She knows he's studying her, but she doesn't push it, for fucking once, and for some reason it makes him touch her cheek in thanks. Sincere thanks.

He looks, between her and Boyd, and feels as a spark of...well. Not _hope_ , and he feels the sardonic pull on his mouth at that.

...Helen won't hold it against him, hell, might even cheer him on, whatever some...possible course of events, might happen to bring to pass on his side of things, but Boyd...Boyd's clannish. Or at least...Raylan _thought_ he was. But if his concern for Raylan over his own brother was that strong...maybe. Maybe, his ostensible loyalty to Big Daddy Crowder might not be so impossible an obstacle as Raylan had always just assumed. Maybe...

...Maybe. When the time is right...


End file.
